


Water Lens

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Genre: (though the case is somewhat abbreviated), Case Fic, F/M, Hair Washing, Intrigue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 19:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: “The good widow couldn't dump you in the fast section of the river, apparently,” January said. “It had to be the mud.”“If she'd only panicked five minutes earlier,” Rose agreed with a sigh. “We were on the bridge then – although given the state of that particular river I wouldn't necessarily put money on it being that much cleaner.”





	Water Lens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brigdh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigdh/gifts).



> This was originally meant to be a threesome Yuleporn fill, which shows how cooperative the characters were. I hope my recipient enjoys having a mid-case scene instead!
> 
> Water lens is among other things another name for duckweed.

January returned with the second batch of heated water from the kitchen boiler and found Rose relatively clean – at least, cleaner than before – and sitting on the bed, blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

“Oh, good.” Rose blinked at him balefully, eyes slightly fuzzy without her spectacles. “I was about to give up and lie down, and I wouldn't have enjoyed having to wash the bedding again.”

“The good widow couldn't dump you in the fast section of the river, apparently,” January said. “It had to be the mud.”

“If she'd only panicked five minutes earlier,” Rose agreed with a sigh. “We were on the bridge then – although given the state of that particular river I wouldn't necessarily put money on it being _that_ much cleaner.”

She had already drained the first round of water. January emptied the water into the tub. Steam hissed up, and Rose hunched slightly towards it, seeking heat as though unconsciously.

“Come here,” he said, rolling his sleeves up.

Rose's hair was still half pinned to her head and sopping wet; her tignon – along with the rest of her clothing – had been discarded already, and would probably go for rags – much to the distress of Dominique, who had lent Rose the clothing in the first place.

He could see that Rose had already made an attempt to sluice the worst of the mud off her hair, but there were still small flecks of duckweed entrapped in it, and a few longer strands of shallow water plants. January carefully disentangled the pins from her hair, rinsing them quickly in the water and discarding them on the floor to be scrubbed later.

Her hair had been braided under the tignon, and now had to be unworked from its knots to remove the plant matter. His fingers occupied, January frowned at Rose's dusky skin. “What did you say to her?”

“It took you long enough to ask,” Rose said. Then: “We were discussing the dire circumstances that forced a widow in deep mourning so far from her family that she had to pawn her jewelry to survive – jewelry she shouldn't have had with her anyway if she was in deep mourning, not that I mentioned it. She fed me the same story she's been telling everyone else in town about her husband shipwrecked at sea and the entire rest of her family back in Spain--”

“I can't say whether any of them really believe it, but it's certainly given her enough invitations to those who enjoy the idea-”

“Yes, and it seemed a natural enough line of inquiry that I felt safe asking. The question about the Greek manuscripts worked perfectly to begin the conversation, you know – or it seemed to.” Even staring at the back of her head, he could see in his mind Rose's frown; with his hands unraveling the base of a braid near her ear, he felt her neck flex as she tilted her head in thought. “She was happy to talk about Homeric translation. I think she could have told me about the Iliad all night if I'd let her. I can't imagine why a girl like that would want to leave a convent, where a girl with the kind of dowry she apparently had could have spent all her days on scholarship.”

“She wasn't happy there, for some reason or other.” January shrugged. Teasing apart the last strands of the braid, he worked his fingers into Rose's scalp, rubbing briefly, and felt her shiver and sigh underneath his hands. “She didn't like the other girls. Or perhaps she had a lover, or wanted one.”

“If she did he's abandoned her fairly thoroughly,” Rose said, but nodded. “Whatever the reason, she's exactly the scholar Sister Teresa told me when she asked me to look into the theft. And that's interesting, too – that she took only the items her family had given as her dowry, when she'd made her way into the place where the rest of it was kept.”

“A very ethical thief,” January said. He took the cup from the floor and ladled hot water over Rose's head, rinsing her scalp and the faint traces of muck along the edge of her face. A second cup drenched the fall of her hair down to where the ends trailed in the basin. “Can you lean back further?”

“Much further and I'll fall in,” Rose said, but put a hand back to brace on the tub and went obligingly, allowing January to gently work his fingers into the places where mud had worked its way into her hair. Her neck and back formed a graceful arc, and he ran his fingers down her spine briefly, still reveling after years of marriage in the fact that he could.

“We weren't discussing the story exactly at the end. I asked her if she'd gotten much for them – you know, in the tones of one carried away by the tragedy – and the number she gave me wasn't remotely right. I said it sounded as though she'd been cheated and _that_ was when she tripped me. It _is_ odd, isn't it? That she would go to all that trouble to steal diamond of that value from the convent, passing over a large amount of actual money, and then undersell it?”

“An interesting question with an interesting answer,” Hannibal said from the doorway. “It seems she might not have had so much choice about what she stole. If what I've told is true, she didn't come from the convent at all.” He came in, letter in hand, and sat on the bed Rose had vacated, letter in hand.

“The family answered?” Rose asked sharply. “What did they say?”

“Sister Teresa left a thing or two out – though whether to you or to them I'm uncertain. They thank me for the information about the missing necklace, which they had sought to recover unsuccessfully from the convent. It seems six months back they were informed that their daughter had been taken ill with malaria. And died of it.”

Silence filled the room in the wake of this announcement. The swirl and drip of the water as January rinsed Rose's hair seemed very loud, and the sound of his and Rose's breathing beneath it was clearly audible.

“Dead,” Rose said, slowly. “Of malaria. Then if it isn't Antonia masquerading as the widow Maria Soto Lopez with the former's jewelry – who is it?”

“I thought it seemed odd, how poorly her mourning dress fit her,” said January.

“That might as easily be because she had to acquire it all in a hurry,” said Rose. “And why did Sister Teresa tell me it was the girl who'd stolen the jewelry if she was dead?”

“One moment,” January said to her, stroking her neck, and got up.

She kept vials of substances to use in her hair; January found the one for when it was exceptionally dirty and took it back. He poured out some of the herbed oil into his hand and began working it into her scalp, pulling apart the last tangles of duckweed.

“So you know my news,” Hannibal said. “Did your conversation bear fruit? It certainly seems to have been eventful if I correctly identify that heap of rags on the steps as having started out life as one of Dominique's dresses...”

“She tripped me into the river when I told her she'd been cheated, selling that necklace,” Rose said. “I'm going to have to apologize to Dominique, I told her I would give it back.”

“She won't mind,” January said, and gravely: “That style of sleeves has been out of fashion the past six months.”

“Unwearable,” Rose said, and tilted her head up in the process of rolling her eyes.

The herbs in the oil were familiar from nights spent with his face close to Rose's uncovered hair; with her head doused in it she smelled somehow more intensely herself, and like sex. With her a good deal cleaner January was starting to enjoy the contact. He worked patiently at the knots as they continued going over it.

“So we have a girl who stole jewelry from a convent and then died of malaria, and another girl who arrives in New Orleans with that same jewelry, claiming to be a destitute widow in need only of funds to return to Spain,” January said. “And that same widow undersells a necklace worth a fortune for, she says, food and lodging – and is enraged to hear it mentioned. Might she only be angry with herself for the mistake?”

“You would think a con artist so talented would know the worth of a diamond necklace that size,” Hannibal said.

“No, it wasn't a surprise to her,” Rose said. “I caught a look at her face through the veils – I was very close or she wouldn't have been able to trip me like that. She wasn't angry or shocked. She was frightened, that I knew.”

“So if she knew that it was a bad deal, why did she take it?” January said. “Who did she take it from? Did you manage to trace it that far?” he asked Hannibal.

“I did, at that. She didn't sell it to one of the pawn shops; none of them had seen it before. But I asked around and John Davis recognized it--”

“What, from the casino?” January said in disbelief. “Was she gambling with it and lost?”

“That would be substantially more of a loss than she told me she had selling it,” Rose said. “Not to mention it is not exactly the behavior of a respectable widow.”

“It also raise the question of where she got the money she's been living on since,” January said.

“Not exactly,” Hannibal said. “She apparently sold it there, to a man by the name of Jean Martin who is somewhat of a notorious cheat. He'll undersell anyone desperate enough to take his offers. But the thing is, he occasionally buys drunk, and John Davis says on those occasions he can't tell a good fake from the real thing.”

Rose twisted around, meeting January's eyes over the basin. Her hair twisted out of his hands, trailing into the basin. “The necklace. It's a fake.”

“It has to be the real thing – I mean, it must really belong to the family,” January said. “Or if not, where is the original?”

“Oh, I think this is the original set after all. Finish my hair quickly. I need to examine it.”

“You've had a thought, Athene?” Hannibal asked.

“I think Sister Teresa told me the truth after all – and not Antonia's parents, for whatever reason. She took only what she thought belonged to her; and she knew it wasn't real. So when she had a need for cash she found someone who wouldn't know the difference. That much money might be scant for diamonds of that size – but it's an excellent bargain if what you're selling is actually made of glass.”

Rose took the cloth January retrieved for her and wrapped it around her hair quickly. She had been shivering when he came back in, but now her movements were steady as she set down the blanket, retrieved her spectacles, and went, in her shift, to the laboratory.

Hannibal produced the necklace at her request from an inner pocket, and she went to retrieve a steel file, which failed entirely to leave a mark.

“It's harder than glass, anyway,” Rose said, and began unpacking glass beakers. “Could one of you get my scales? And I need to take this out of its setting.”

“The family might object,” January said.

“The family can pay to have it fixed if I'm wrong,” Rose said, and went to retrieve a crowbar.

January, wincing, found the scales packed neatly in one of the cupboards. “You think it's another stone?”

“Quartz isn't always scratched by steel,” Rose said.

The actual process of testing it involved filling the beaker to the brim with water from a jug, weighing it, and then weighting it with the stone in. “That's not diamond,” Rose finally pronounced, pen against her lips.

“Well,” Hannibal said. “Do you think the convent suspected the family of passing them off a fake?”

“It does beg the question of why they lied,” January said. “But couldn't another thief have as easily discovered the necklace was fake?”

Rose shook her head. “The cut makes it difficult to determine the crystal structure, and the stone isn't scratched. The test I just did wouldn't have worked with the setting still attached. I think she had to have known it was a commissioned fake, or heard from a relative; and if she had known it wouldn't be easily proven, why go to the trouble of seeking out a drunk buyer?”

“So Antonia runs away from the convent,” January said. “She takes the contents of her own dowry, which she knows consists of some money – I presume already spent – and a fake diamond necklace. She travels to New Orleans and begins casting about for someone willing to fund her journey to Spain, beyond the reach of her family and the convent in Mexico, under the pretense of being a destitute widow in need of help returning to her family in Madrid...”

“In the process, needing temporary funds, she sells the necklace,” Hannibal went on. “Knowing it to be fake, but without the knowledge of how well the forgery was actually done, she finds the safest buyer available. And when Rose comments on it she panics, and gives herself away in the process.”

“Which leaves us with two questions,” Rose said. “Why not tell her family she ran away? Why stage a death it would be awkward to later take back, while still trying to recover her? And knowing this, what are we going to do?”

“Further,” Hannibal said. “What is the convent intending to do when her whereabouts are discovered?”

The three exchanged a look.

January said, “I think we need to confront Antonia. If her family's been told she's dead, she's likely in danger.”

“And knowing what exactly she ran away from may help us determine that, too,” Rose said grimly. “Once she knows her family isn't interested in recovering her – and that the convent is – she may be willing to tell us a little more.”

 


End file.
